


Desmond

by almina



Category: Hacksaw Ridge (2016)
Genre: M/M, forgiveness freely granted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-08 01:11:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10374483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/almina/pseuds/almina
Summary: Jack Glover cannot forgive himself for sanctioning the cruel treatment of Desmond Doss





	

Desmond rolled his head on the pillow. He was in that nice opiate haze, aware of his surroundings, but his pain at a bearable distance thanks to the morphine. His left arm, shattered in three places, hung in presurgical traction. Captain Glover was walking slowly down the aisle between the beds. He had his own wounds to nurse. He stopped at the foot of Desmond's bed and went to Doss's right side. There was a chair by the bed. He slumped down, his eyes on Desmond's face. He reached across the bed and pushed the sweaty hair off Desmond's forehead.

"Exhaustion, and you caught some shrapnel in your back. You've used up all your luck. You'll be on a hospital ship by this time tomorrow", Glover said and hoped that would cheer Doss up. 

Glover drew a ragged breath. To think he had tried to get rid of Doss. Doss had saved him in more than one sense. Hacksaw had been a fuck up, maybe not on the order of Pickett's charge but it would go down in the annals of ill considered attacks, and Glover's name would be inextricably linked with it. But this skinny kid had turned the horror into heroism. 

Desmond saw such sadness on Glover's face. Glover's conscience would give him no peace. Desmond had become an expert on such matters, starting with that horrible day when he nearly killed his brother. There was no peace, nothing he could say to God or to himself to keep from feeling that he was a terrible person who did terrible things and who would always be so. Finally his mother made him understand that God saw what was in his heart. Of course the Lord forgave him. Go and sin no more. The point was to love one another, to try to live without sin. Torturing yourself was not on that list. The pain lifted away. Desmond would never again do anything that would bring his own conscience down on him like that. It hurt too much. Better that he die than that he kill. 

Desmond recognized an implacable conscience when he saw one and he knew why Glover was torturing himself. Officers, including Glover, had sanctioned, given subtle instruction for the men in Desmond's barracks to drive him out of the military. Desmond was just too different. His mere presence was enough to disrupt morale. Glover berated himself; here he was in the presence of freakish courage and large hearted concern for all life. Just as sure as if he had raised a fist to Doss, he had shared in the abuse. 

He slumped further as it struck him that he should be one of Americans dead up on Hacksaw. Desmond reached out his right hand, bandaged after he'd abraded away the skin as he lowered man after man off Hacksaw. 

Desmond did not give cheap forgiveness. You had to think of the wrong done you before you could truly let it go, give up the anger and the hurt, or those toxins would remain like infections of the soul. But he wanted to forgive Glover. They were more alike than Glover suspected. They both wanted to prove themselves, do the things a man did.

"Hey," Doss said. Glover looked up. 

"Enough," Doss said. "You've chastised yourself enough" He squeezed Glover's hand. "I forgive you with all my heart."

Glover clutched Desmond's hand and held it to his face. He suppressed the impulse to kiss it, not for what someone would think of him, but to spare Doss further harsh judgment.

  

"Let'em think what they will," Desmond said as he smiled.


End file.
